Gender, Personality, and Benefits Sought: Examining Chinese Leisure Travelers

Abstract

This paper reports on a study that tested empirically the extent to which tourists' leisure benefits sought is explained by tourists travel personality and their gender. 348 Chinese potential leisure travelers (convenient sample) participated and successfully finished the on-line survey. Based on the information provided by the respondents, 7 main benefits sought were identified and the respondents were grouped into 4 personality groups based on the psychocentric-allocentric continuum. Furthermore, this study examined the differences of benefits sought among personality groups and gender groups. The study found that there were significant association between the respondents' tourist personality types, their gender, and their leisure benefits sought, for some benefits factors. The implications for tourism marketing are discussed.